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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

CHRIST AND THE DRAMAS 
OF DOUBT 

12mo. Net, Sl.OO 

PERSONALISM AND THE PROBLEMS 
OF PHILOSOPHY 

12mo. Net, $1.00 



PHILOSOPHY AND 
THE WAR 



BY 
RALPH TYLER FLEWELLING 

Professor of Philosophy in the University of Southern California 




THE ABINGDON PRESS 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



Copyright, 1918. by 
RALPH TYLER FLEWELLING 



m 17 f9/3 



'Q.Cuk5i)1478 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Introductory — Philosophy and 
Life 7 

I. German Philosophy as a Re- 
action ON Life 15 

IL German Philosophy as a Politi- 
cal Principle 27 

III. Impersonalism as the Essential 

Feature of German Phil- 
osophy 32 

IV. Impersonalism a Passing Mood 39 

V. The World Demand for a Per- 
soNALisTic Interpretation of 
Life 46 

VI. America and the Superman .... 57 

VII. The Voice at Armageddon 67 



INTRODUCTORY— PHILOSO- 
PHY AND LIFE 

William Archer in a little volume 
entitled Fighting a Philosophy quotes 
Oscar Levy, the English exponent of 
Nietzsche, as saying in 1906, "Shall 
I prove to you that a new philosophy 
may be a more powerful enemy than 
all the navies of the world?" 

While the struggle goes on that 
shall prove whether these words are 
true, there has come an appreciation 
such as has been markedly wanting 
in the common thought, that the mood 
and logical outcome of philosophy 
may be laden with the utmost moment 
to society. We Americans must 
charge ourselves with special laxity. 
A part of our feeling for democracy 
has been to allow the individual the 
7 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

fullest freedom of expression. We 
have felt that every man had perfect 
liberty to mouth his opinions un- 
molested from the housetop, regard- 
less of their truth, or of their influ- 
ence on the common weal. Views 
might be obviously immoral in their 
outcome, subversive of the general 
good, or even seditious, and yet with 
good-natured tolerance we have put 
the wing of protection too often over 
forces which were destructive of the 
social fabric. The present crisis has 
forced upon our attention in a special 
way the right of society to protect it- 
self from the enemies of the common 
good. So long as these forces have 
confined themselves to theoretical or 
philosophical statement we have as- 
sumed that they were practically 
harmless. A prominent educator is 
reported as saying: *This world has 
at last reached the stage where it sees 
8 



INTRODUCTORY 

that philosophy is the determining 
factor in man's being; that conflicting 
notions of the way to think of and 
plan human existence are responsible 
for the bloodshed and the devastating 
woes which now so overwhelmingly 
beset the earth. A great prayer goes 
up from every land for sounder no- 
tions of the way to live. This red 
baptism of agony and death is purg- 
ing us of our delusion and vanities, 
and bringing us to the essential reali- 
ties." 

We used frequently to hear that it 
did not matter what a man believed so 
long as he was conscientious. We are 
now beginning to see that the great- 
est safeguards of a democracy are the 
fountains of its thought. If one mes- 
sage more than another is being writ- 
ten across the scroll of the present 
age, it is the terrifying effect of a 
culture which is wanting in the spirit- 
9 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

ual and moral verities. We are be- 
ginning to see how any civilization 
that is founded on culture alone is 
built upon the shifting sand. Think- 
ing is not safe if it does not contain a 
note of reverence and social responsi- 
bility. A culture may be brilliant, it 
may have attained the maximum of 
efficiency from the economic or politi- 
cal standpoint and yet it may fail 
utterly of true service to society be- 
cause lacking this deeper element. 

For this reason there must be in 
the near future a backward swing 
from a conception of education as 
most to be valued and most "scien- 
tific" the more it is lacking in moral 
and spiritual values. The tendency 
has been to exalt a mere professional- 
ism, and to restrict education to the 
merely technical, preparing for mer- 
cantile, professional, or industrial life, 
with little consideration for mental 

10 



INTRODUCTORY 

discipline and ethical training and 
none at all for the finer qualities of 
spirit. The readjustments which 
must follow the present world crisis 
will demand something more than 
professional efficiency. They can be 
reached only as professional effi- 
ciency is joined to deep ethical and 
spiritual insight. I am quite aware 
that these sentiments will sound 
strange in the ears of this age. So 
long have we been overawed and 
dominated by the educational philoso- 
phy which now menaces the best of 
civilization that things which men see 
practically have not become a part of 
accepted philosophical expression. 

The world has been fairly well 
surfeited with the predominance of 
"dollar" thinking. Where the note 
of reverence, of spiritual reality and 
social responsibility is lacking, a 
deadly miasma creeps into the air, 
II 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

creating misunderstandings and hos- 
tilities that eventually array nations 
and civilizations in armed combat. 

For the conscious and subconscious 
ideals of life, seemingly unimportant, 
really determine action. Even the 
folk-tales of a people are not unimpor- 
tant. They teach a subtle philosophy 
which enters the common life and con- 
sciousness. The crude Samson stories 
sprang not only from the ethical feel- 
ings of the Jewish people, but were a 
strong factor in keeping Jewish youth 
to a high road of purity by showing 
the weakness that comes of wrong- 
doing. The modern Englishman 
owes something of his sense of re- 
sponsibility for the weak, something 
of his high notion of honor to the 
tales of Saint George and the Dragon 
and the Knights of the Round Table. 
The legends of Faust, Tannhauser 
and the Lorelei have been the expres- 

12 



INTRODUCTORY 

sion's and the impetus to a wild and 
irresponsible mood which has made 
it easy for the leaders of Germany to 
enter into league with the devil for 
the mastery of the twentieth-century 
world. And if it be true that we have 
entered upon a twilight of the gods, 
there are brave men who have sworn 
that it shall be the twilight of the gods 
of wrong and oppression to which 
men sell their souls in the hope of un- 
lawful gains. 

In calling you to consider the mat- 
ter of German philosophy I do not 
presume to pass final judgment on all 
German philosophy. I do not intend 
to write except of those phases which 
in my judgment relate to the war. I 
do not deny nor overlook that there 
are better and noble elements, but 
I do affirm that such philosophical 
voices are not the ones that are being 
listened to in Germany at this hour. 
13 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

That must be my reason for neglect- 
ing them. Because we thus confine 
ourselves to certain issues of Ger- 
man philosophy we will probably be 
charged with partisanship. We must 
here limit the discussion to those 
phases of German thought which take 
their places in the present crisis. We 
cannot consider those that lie crushed 
and defeated upon the field of Ger- 
man national life. 



H 



CHAPTER I 

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AS A 
REACTION ON LIFE 

German philosophy as a reaction 
on Hfe is aptly illustrated in the life 
and masterpiece of Goethe. That the 
illustration is not farfetched is mani- 
fest from the fact, of which the Ger- 
mans boast, that Faust is one of the 
five books to be found in the knap- 
sack of every intelligent German sol- 
dier. That the illustration is ap- 
propriate is evidenced by the events 
that have taken place since the war 
began. 

Goethe's life philosophy, a fore- 
gleam of the doctrine of the super- 
man, was simply this: the Goethe in- 
dividual, because of his conscious 
15 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

superiority, was to use all lesser lives 
(and in this case it meant all other 
lives) as the foil and impetus of its 
own development and greatness. All 
experiences of love and passion were 
to be indulged for their cultural value 
to the poet, but with no responsibil- 
ity assumed on his part. Goethe's 
friends, male and female, were gath- 
ered up into his grasp and used so 
long as they were valuable, and then 
were cast ruthlessly aside. When the 
funeral cortege of his best friend 
passed before Goethe's window, he re- 
fused to look out lest his own precious 
spirit be depressed by the sight. In 
the great work which began with his 
youth and ended but a short time be- 
fore his death we have set out before 
us, as he did not intend, the tragedy 
of Goethe's dying soul. 

It was significant of the Goethean 
philosophy, that while Margaret was 
i6 



A REACTION ON LIFE 

left to meet her moral problem ac- 
cording to the antiquated views of the 
church, after the only effective man- 
ner of salvation given among men, 
namely, repentance, confession, and 
paying the debt to society, the arch- 
criminal and enlightened Faust wipes 
from his soul the foulness of unre- 
pented sin by looking at grass, 
flowers, and waterfalls. From him 
there is no repentance nor regret, only 
"Kultur." And Goethe considered 
Faust a true solution of the dark prob- 
lem of sin. Faust is thought to be 
justified in the ruin of Margaret's 
life, because thereby his own life was 
made more replete. There still con- 
tinue in the world multitudes of peo- 
ple who have small regard for Faust, 
the Superman, and who are keen 
enough to see that when Faust turned 
from the prison cell, abandoning 
Margaret to her lonely fate, all that 
17 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

was noble, all that was worthy the 
name of manhood, died within him. 
That which might be called personal- 
ity was ended and he had developed 
individuality instead. That this is 
not an extreme interpretation is evi- 
denced by the best of German opinion 
itself. 

I bring you another example of 
this philosophy as a reaction upon 
life, taken from the turbid stream a 
half century later. 

We witness in Nietzsche the full 
flowering of the Goethean ethics and 
philosophy. Not himself a German, 
and despising the Prussian, Nietz- 
sche's philosophy is the predominant 
philosophy of Germany to-day. A 
part of the German boast, already 
alluded to, is that a second one of 
those books to be found in every in- 
telligent soldier's knapsack is Nietz- 
sche. 

i8 



A REACTION ON LIFE 

To men already inflated with a 
false individualism and sense of great- 
ness, for whom Goethe had prepared 
the doctrine that every sin is pardoned 
by the attainment of "Kultur," Neitz- 
sche became the appropriate prophet. 
The significance of Nietzsche's phi- 
losophy lay in his reversal of all moral 
values. Not love, but force and 
power; not sympathy, but cunning 
and treachery; not meekness, but 
mastery by any means, was the gos- 
pel of this madman. To transform 
oneself into a "blonde beast," ravag- 
ing, violating, murdering, was justi- 
fied by the achievement of power. 
Should some pro-German friend ob- 
ject that Nietzsche is not the pre- 
dominant philosophical force of Ger- 
many to-day, we reply, "By their 
fruits ye shall know them." We point 
to the lurid pages of recent history, so 
black that they could not be recited 
19 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

within the hearing of any decent man. 
The flaming towns, the floating 
corpses of our own women and chil- 
dren, in days when we were attempt- 
ing to withhold our judgment and be 
neutral; the violated women, the 
bestially maimed bodies of women, lit- 
tle children, and prisoners of war; 
long lines of captive girls, driven with 
whips into slavery and prostitution 
— let his hand forget its cunning and 
his tongue cleave to his mouth, who 
in wanton forgetfulness of the just 
judgments of God proposes to make 
uncertain peace with such a foe. 

Let us read a few passages from 
the new testament of the devil, that is, 
from the Nietzschean scriptures: 

''What they" (the levelers) "would 
fain attain with all their strength, is 
the universal, green-meadow happi- 
ness of the herd, together with 
security, safety, comfort, and allevi- 
20 



A REACTION ON LIFE 

ation of life for every one; their two 
most frequently chanted songs and 
doctrines are called 'Equality of 
Rights' and 'Sympathy with All Suf- 
ferers' — and suffering itself is looked 
upon by them as something which 
must be done azvay with. We op- 
posite ones, however, who have 
opened our eye and conscience to the 
question how and where the plant 
*man' has hitherto grown most vigor- 
ously, believe that this has always 
taken place under the opposite condi- 
tions, that for this end the danger- 
ousness of his situation had to be in- 
creased enormously, his inventive 
faculty and dissembling power (his 
'spirit') had to develop into subtlety 
and daring under long oppression 
and compulsion, and his Will to Life 
had to be increased to the uncondi- 
tioned Will to Power: — we believe 
that severity, violence, slavery, danger 

21 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

in the street and in the heart, secrecy, 
stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of 
every kind — that everything wicked, 
terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and 
serpentine in man, serves as well for 
the elevation of the human species 
as its opposite: — we do not even say 
enough when we say this much" (Be- 
yond Good and Evil, p. 44). 

His ideal men outside of their own 
country, he says, will be little better 
than so many uncaged beasts of prey. 
Hear him: "And the same men who 
inter pares were kept so rigorously in 
bounds through convention, respect, 
custom, and gratitude, though much 
more through mutual vigilance and 
jealousy inter pares, these men who in 
their relations with each other find 
so many new ways of manifesting 
consideration, self-control, delicacy, 
loyalty, pride, and friendship, these 
men are in reference to what is out- 
22 



A REACTION ON LIFE 

side their circle (where the foreign 
element, a foreign country, begins) 
not much better than beasts of prey 
which have been let loose. They en- 
joy there freedom from all social con- 
trol; . . . they revert to the inno- 
cence of the beast-of-prey conscience, 
like jubilant monsters, who perhaps 
come from a ghastly bout of murder, 
arson, rape, and torture, with bravado 
and a moral equanimity, as though 
merely some wild student's prank had 
been played. ... It is impossible 
not to recognize at the core of all these 
aristocratic races the beast of prey; 
the magnificent blonde brute, avidly 
rampant for spoil and victory; this 
hidden core needed an outlet from 
time to time, the beast must get loose 
again, must return into the wilder- 
ness" (Genealogy of Morals, p. ii). 
"The essential thing, however, in 
a good and healthy aristocracy is that 
23 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

it should not regard itself as a func- 
tion either of the kingship or the com- 
monwealth, but as the significance 
and highest justification thereof — 
that it should therefore accept with 
a good conscience the sacrifice of a 
legion of individuals, who, for its 
sake, must be suppressed and reduced 
to imperfect men, to slaves and in- 
struments. Its fundamental belief 
must be precisely that society is not 
allowed to exist for its own sake, but 
only as a foundation and scaffolding, 
by means of which a select class of 
beings may be able to elevate them- 
selves to their higher duties, and in 
general to a higher existence. ..." 
(Beyond Good and Evil, p. 258). 

"At the risk of displeasing inno- 
cent ears, I submit that egoism be- 
longs to the essence of a noble soul, 
I mean the unalterable belief that to 
a being such as 'we,' other beings 
24 



A REACTION ON LIFE 

must naturally be in subjection, and 
have to sacrifice themselves" (Be- 
yond Good and Evil, p. 265 ) . 

What words of counsel these to put 
in the hands of young men who hold 
toward helpless and weak the role of 
conquerors. In the knapsack with 
Faust and the Bible ! 

That you may see how deeply this 
gospel of blasphemy has taken root 
among the people I quote^ from pas- 
tor Wilhelm Phillipps, editor of Ber- 
lin's Christian Patriotic Weekly, pub- 
lished recently, and commented on by 
the Frankischer Volksfreund. The 
article was headed "Through Tirpitz 
to Jesus." It read : "Our Divine Re- 
deemer is a lover of peace. So are 
we, but the peace that the Lord wants 
must be a lasting peace, and no peace 
can be lasting except one that brings 

* Quoted in Boston Transcript — "Chronicle of 
the War." 

25 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

us Courland, the mining regions of 
Longwy and Briey, and bases for our 
fleets, to serve as future starting 
points in any eventual war with Eng- 
land. The latter, our Tirpitz, a man 
after Christ's own heart, can assure 
us. He may be appropriately styled 
the warlike Nazarene, whose ardent 
patriotism is only equaled by his de- 
votion to his Divine Master, who will 
be his guide in any future enterprises 
he may engage in for the glorification 
of Germanism." 



26 



CHAPTER II 

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AS A 
POLITICAL PRINCIPLE 

If sentiments like those quoted in 
the preceding chapter could have re- 
mained confined to the field of aca- 
demic discussion, we might never 
have heard of them, but they are only 
the philosophical evidences of a wider 
movement, and philosophical ideas 
have a way of escaping into life. The 
immoral egotism and intellectual bril- 
liance that gave us Faust was but the 
outward indication of a deep-moving 
element in German culture and na- 
tionalism. The movement was a po- 
tent cause of the Prussian wars, the 
forcible taking of Schleswig-Holstein, 
and the rape of Alsace-Lorraine. The 
27 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

intoxication of egotism received a 
great impulse in the victories over the 
Austrians, the Danes, and the French. 
Then it was that Bismarck betrayed 
the soul of Germany into the hands 
of the devil. He proceeded upon the 
theory that if the people of Germany 
were well-fed and materially pros- 
perous, they could be so relieved of 
moral sense that they would unques- 
tioningly follow the autocracy. There 
has been in history no more patent 
example of the moral debauch of a 
great people. But some one arises at 
this point to accuse me of too severe 
judgments. Then let me turn the tell- 
ing of the tale over to a German, your- 
selves being the judges. 

The Kreuzzeitung (Gazette of the 
Cross), Berlin, published late in 
1917,^ contained the following esti- 

' Quoted from the Boston Evening Transcript, 
"Chronicle of the War," December 22, 1917. 

28 



A POLITICAL PRINCIPLE 

mate of Bismarck and his policies: 
"Can conscience and the necessities of 
a state march together ? In the world 
of action it is unfortunately very diffi- 
cult for them to do so. They can and 
they do, however, in the world of in- 
tellect, when an aroused conscience 
takes on itself the guilt that has arisen 
from the necessities of a state, and 
transforms itself into a moral and 
religious devotion to the state in 
which that conscience has come into 
its own. 

"Bismarck was one of these con- 
science-governed appreciators of the 
necessities of the state, and of their 
preeminence even over the very con- 
science that ruled him, so that with 
open eyes and with frank admission 
he passed through guilt to that road 
that should lead to the ennoblement 
and aggrandizement of the state he 
served. 

29 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

"Herein lies the profound differ- 
ence between Bismarck and the Eng- 
lish statesmen. In their actions they 
top are led solely by political consider- 
ations, but they are lacking in that 
most delicate conscience which hon- 
estly calls politics by its right name, 
and admits guilt when through guilt 
alone those politics can be served. 

''Bismarck represents to us there- 
fore the embodiment of a profound 
truthfulness, while English statesmen, 
not being possessed with the requisite 
moral courage and strength, conceal 
their politics under a hypocritical 
mantle of sanctity, which is both dis- 
gusting and blasphemous in men who 
have invented, or at all events em- 
ployed, the most fiendish mechanical 
contrivances to kill and mutilate men 
who have no animus against the ene- 
my but are simply doing their duty 
in shielding the Fatherland from the 
30 



A POLITICAL PRINCIPLE 

catastrophe of invasion." The writer 
who quotes this adds : "Asphyxiating 
gas, liquid flame, disease germs, 
poisoning wells, infernal machines in 
ship's bunkers, slavery, rape, murder, 
arson, forgery, justifiable for Ger- 
many's conscience — British tanks, un- 
adulterated, original sin." 

The German editor who wrote that 
article had lost his sense of moral 
values, and that it could be written 
and could be received by intelligent 
people is proof of widespread moral 
blindness. 



n 



31 



CHAPTER III 

IMPERSONALISM AS THE 

ESSENTIAL FEATURE OF 

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 

The fatal weakness of German 
philosophy in general, and of the sys- 
tem that now holds the hearts of the 
people in particular, is its impersonal- 
ism. I have already mentioned the 
cultivation of individuality at the ex- 
pense of personality, which was ap- 
parent in the life of Goethe. By in- 
dividualism I mean that rank egotism 
that fattens itself at the expense of 
all moral and humane considerations. 
We have had too much of it in our 
English-speaking lands under the 
terminology of Superman. Personal- 
ity, on the other hand, clings to the 
great moralities as the priceless treas- 
32 



IMPERSONALISM 

ures of the soul, and to these it dings 
though they lead it to a cross. Per- 
sonality is the touch of the Divine 
which may arise in every man, what- 
ever his race, training, or education, 
and on account of which he is of the 
utmost value to society, and in accord- 
ance with which he claims the right 
to a normal self-development. When 
German philosophy overlooks or de- 
nies this right to the last and the 
least man in the world it betrays hu- 
manity. Even in those phases in 
which it has not sold itself outright 
to the devil it has been burdened with 
an abstraction of impersonal theories 
which have helped to prepare the 
fertile field of moral equivocation and 
inhumanity. One need not be unap- 
preciative of the great work of Kant, 
Fichte, and Hegel, to recognize their 
failure to connect with the vital prob- 
lems of human beings. The reason 
33 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

for this has been that persons have 
seemed to them of relatively little 
moment, and the development of per- 
sonality of the sacrificial kind as a 
weakness. This is no new tale or 
discovery. It has been clear to the 
best thinkers of Germany for a long 
time. I shall not soon forget a con- 
versation with one of the greatest of 
German thinkers. It occurred just 
before the outbreak of the war. With 
grave face and tones of great ear- 
nestness he described the low state of 
real religion in his country, and de- 
clared that an American could not 
realize the depth of the religious prob- 
lem that was facing them. 

The inability of German philosophy 
to reach the ground and to respond to 
the vital moral needs of man has been 
the great source of its failure. Its 
culture has been intellectual at the ex- 
pense of the finer voices of the heart. 
34 



IMPERSONALISM 

This was the reason that, developing 
the realm of biblical criticism to a 
commendable degree, it was able to 
arrive at results that were only nega- 
tive and nullifying. The same tinge 
runs through its inhuman scientific 
efficiency. And the world is pretty 
sure to be so sick of the inhumanity 
and godlessness of its "Kultur" that 
it will forget any good it has to offer. 
This impersonal mood in German 
philosophy must be taken into account 
in considering the brutality of the 
German soldier. He is a part of an 
impersonalistic system. He is bidden 
by his officers to shut his heart to 
every tender feeling. And the result 
has been that his manhood has been 
lost somewhere in the meshes of mili- 
tary training, so that he has been 
guilty of barbarities and refinements 
of cruelty that savages would despise 
and be incapable of conceiving. 
35 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

This impersonal temper has caused 
Germany likewise to fail in every ac- 
tion that depended on a knowledge of 
psychology, though she thought her 
scholars the most efficient in the 
world. 

Her campaign of frightfulness set 
the red blood surging in a thousand 
million breasts that might have been 
supposed inseparably attached to 
peace. The campaign of frightful- 
ness has been worth to England more 
than millions of armed men. 

Her propaganda of bribery and re- 
volt raised an army for Britain in 
India and caused the pouring out of 
the wealth of the Indian princes. Her 
submarine campaign, designed to keep 
America from the war, made Amer- 
ica's participation inevitable. Her 
system of spies and espionage misre- 
ported the temper of every people. 
There must be a reason for so uni- 
36 



IMPERSONALISM 

versal a failure. The Boers from 
Africa, the Anzacs from Australia, 
the men of Canada, the honest heart 
of Ireland singing "Tipperary," all 
responded to the bugle call of the 
spirit, and Germany might have fore- 
seen this had she had any eyes of the 
spirit to see with. The very efficiency 
and impersonalism of her culture 
blinded her to the existence of values 
that were deeper and more potent 
than all the mailed fists in the world. 
And so the world gathers for her un- 
doing, and the mingled voice of Eng- 
lish, American, East Indian, African- 
Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, 
French join in one answer to her terri- 
ble boast, and the answer is, "They 
shall not pass." And the reason that 
men of all races and tongues and 
speech and religions, looking over the 
rim of the world, catch one vision of 
freedom is because throughout the 
37 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

world the essential right of manhood 
is being challenged by an embattled 
impersonalism, its common foe. Men 
know full well that if Germany were 
in any sense to win this war, no spot 
on God's earth would be worth living 
in. 



38 



CHAPTER IV 

IMPERSONALISM A PASSING 
MOOD 

Two forces have been long at work 
to bring the impersonalistic temper 
in all places of culture. The common 
man's criticism of the college cur- 
riculum is in a measure just. There 
may have been more truth than the 
average scholar has realized in the 
criticism of the masses that the col- 
lege has in too many cases succeeded 
only in training its students away 
from sympathy and touch with com- 
mon interest and common life. 

This tendency has appeared at two 

widely sundered poles. At least in 

theory they are far apart. In fact, 

they are much closer together than 

39 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

either partisan will admit. The first 
is represented by a coldly intellectual 
dogmatic and abstract philosophy. In 
this realm we hear much of cosmic 
consciousness, absolutes, thought- 
planes and states of consciousness, 
with scarcely a glimmer of light cast 
upon the reality and force of the in- 
dividual soul. To such a philosophy 
man himself is lost from view in the 
tireless search for an abstraction. 
Much of this type of teaching has 
borne as little relation to life and real- 
ity as the dogmas of ancient scho- 
lasticism. The main point of failure 
with such a philosophy has been its 
rank impersonalism. It was wont to 
overlook life in oi'der to defend a 
theory. 

This type of thought has, however, 

been much less in vogue, much less 

influential, than has the system which 

divided with it the attention of the 

40 



A PASSING MOOD 

scholarly world. This second type of 
impersonaHsm is to be found in great 
sections of scientific teaching. One 
might almost say scientific dogma, for 
many things have been taught as 
scientific law and gospel which have 
never reached a surer stage than 
that of hypothetical reasonableness. 
Science seeks from multitudinous ex- 
periences of action in the natural 
world to discover the uniformities of 
that action and classify them as laws. 
These laws are then erected into 
magic potency which is deemed to 
read out of the universe all place for 
Supreme Will, Purpose, and Person- 
ality. What wonder is it that in- 
dividual responsibility and social re- 
action are caught in the same mael- 
strom of discredit and unimportance. 
Analogous laws are assumed to apply 
in the biological, social, and political 
worlds. It is presumed that psycho- 
41 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

tian until he could bring himself to 
the unrelenting form of a common 
"experience," or creed or formulary 
or ritualistic order. 

In society we have had our scien- 
tific sociological panaceas through 
which the age was to begin anew by 
bringing all men to the uninteresting 
level of commonplace. Our treatment 
of crime, of problems of labor and 
capitalism, have each in turn fallen 
under the ban of "scientific" treatment 
which forgets the essential part and 
the interesting part of the problem, 
the unique and living personalities of 
men. 

All such schemes of impersonalism 
inevitably prove too much, and theo- 
retically they work too well. They 
return, like some ugly Frankenstein 
which we have started and cannot 
stop, to destroy all that our hands 
have laboriously wrought. The Ger- 
44 



A PASSING MOOD 

man is correct in thinking of his "Kul- 
tur" as scientific. Where he is wrong 
is in thinking it can be permanently 
appHed to any set of living human 
beings. His system is fundamentally 
wrong because man cannot be dealt 
with as a thing. These days of war 
are proving the inadequacy of all im- 
personalistic theories of life. They 
are loosening their ancient reign and 
must shortly pass away. In the words 
of Emerson — 

"There are two laws discrete 

Not reconciled — 
Law for man, and law for thing ; 
The last builds town and fleet, 

But it runs wild. 
And doth the man unking," 



45 



CHAPTER V 

THE WORLD DEMAND FOR A 
PERSONALISTIC INTER- 
PRETATION OF LIFE 

The war is too close to us for any 
man to imagine that he can compre- 
hend it. But out of the sore and bit- 
ter night-watches there come some 
gleams of promise for a wonderful 
new world, better than our fondest 
dreams. There are tokens of a new 
seriousness, a new religiousness, and 
new demands in the minds of men. 
We cannot tell what the future will 
bring, but we know that future will 
not be like the old world that is pass- 
ing away. As well expect to thrust 
a fledgling back into its shell as to 
think for a moment that the multi- 
46 



THE WORLD DEMAND 

plied lessons of men will result only 
in an effort to rebuild the world that 
has gone to pieces. The foremost de- 
mand of this new world will be for a 
personal interpretation of life and his- 
tory. The reason I am sure of this 
is because the war is itself the world- 
wide revolt against the impersonalis- 
tic interpretation of life, society, and 
history. We are coming to world- 
wide understandings of the intrinsic 
value of one person. The Christmas 
bells never rang in all the years of 
Christian history a more meaningful 
or holy song than at this latest Christ- 
mas. The song that sings to-day in 
the hearts of earth's unnumbered mul- 
titudes is the song that rang first from 
angel lips over the starry fields of 
Bethlehem; "Peace on the earth to 
men of good will." The scattered 
tribes of earth have looked into each 
other's eyes with a new understand- 
47 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

ing and have sworn with the oath of 
a great sacrifice that every institu- 
tion, philosophy, king or potentate 
that dares to break the world's best 
dream, and reenact the slaughter of 
the innocents, shall be cast into the pit, 
and that the sword shall not be 
sheathed until the song of Bethlehem 
can tell a message of truth for the last 
and feeblest child of man in all the 
world. The demand is a demand for 
a new humanity — for a fair chance 
for the mind and soul of every man 
born into the world. From city slums 
and mountain loneliness, from where 
the great river threads the jungle, 
from the vastness of the Arabian 
deserts, from the crowded pestholes 
of India — from everywhere men are 
showing the devotion of unconsider- 
ing sacrifice, and prejudices of race 
are being washed out in seas of blood ; 
and now we see that to which our eyes 
48 



THE WORLD DEMAND 

have been too long holden, that we 
are the children of one Father, and 
that not one can suffer in his loneli- 
ness and misery without injury to all. 
Materialism that forgets the man be- 
hind the individual, abstract philoso- 
phy that makes concrete wrong ap- 
pear like an abstract right — these 
will have been found forever want- 
ing. 

The one thing that rises out of the 
wreck of war is the unity of our com- 
mon interest, and the things that have 
long divided us appear in their true 
insignificance. 

This temper is evidenced by many 
occurrences in the war, the stories of 
which are too familiar to repeat. The 
readiness of chaplains of all faiths to 
minister religiously to men without 
distinction of creed shows a universal 
falling back upon the essentials of 
religion. Now a Roman Catholic 
49 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

priest undergoes great personal peril 
to pray with a dying Protestant ; now 
a Presbyterian hears the dying con- 
fession of a Catholic. A rabbi minis- 
ters with a crucifix to a dying man, 
or Protestants preserve order for the 
Mass, only to have the compliment re- 
turned at the hour of Protestant wor- 
ship. New religious understandings, 
new community of feeling, new sense 
of the simple essentials of Christian 
life and faith shine out like stars over 
the murky blackness of the night. 
The unessential things which divide 
men are discovered in new and less 
favorable light. Deeds of undying 
heroism and sacrifice, manlinesses 
which show the truest nobility of soul 
are found not peculiar to any one 
creed or race of men. While there 
are being displayed the most reeking 
depths of inhumanity and worse than 
bestiality, there are innumerable evi- 
So 



THE WORLD DEMAND 

dences of sacrificial devotion and 
nobility in lives where it would be 
least suspected. If the meanness and 
dastardliness of lives devoted to 
wrong principles is being shown in a 
way more complete and tragic than 
the world has ever known, it is also 
true that the ennobling value of right 
principles and a just cause has never 
been displayed so clearly. 

And men who are thus discovering 
their common noble qualities are 
being welded in sympathy as iron 
runs together in the white heat of a 
crucible. Where there is discovered 
to be a common interest and a com- 
mon sympathy, a common expression 
of faith will ultimately be demanded. 

A startling illustration of this 
breaking down of barriers has ap- 
peared during the war in the columns 
of the "Churchman" in the Boston 
Evening Transcript. 
51 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

The first is taken from the Ameri- 
can Lutheran Survey and follows: 

''It is said that many cultured Jews 
have of late come to recognize and 
acknowledge the power and the truth 
of Christianity. One of them is 
quoted as saying: 'We are being ir- 
resistibly carried forward toward a 
spiritual crisis which can end only in 
spiritual bankruptcy. The gospel is a 
resistless power which is slowly but 
surely influencing our minds and 
making us impotent to maintain our 
opposition to the Nazarene. Willy- 
nilly, we are compelled to admire his 
teaching, his life, and his work. Our 
position is untenable ; we will have to 
yield our ground, as hard as it is to 
acknowledge an error.' This is the 
only solution of the Jewish question, 
internally and externally. As soon as 
a thoughtful Jew has become truly ac- 
quainted with the actual picture of 
52 



THE WORLD DEMAND 

Jesus In the New Testament, he in- 
voluntarily bows his knees before the 
supernatural Greatness, and says, 
'Thou art fairer than the children of 
men: grace is poured into thy lips.' 
That which prevents us from accept- 
ing Christianity is not Christ but the 
Christians. They accord us hatred 
and scorn. ... It is this hatred 
that is still holding us together as a 
nation. As prominent a personage as 
Miss Lazarus, the writer says, 'We 
are standing on the threshold and do 
not know where we are to go.' What 
a marvel might be unfolded," con- 
tinues the Lutheran Survey, "if Chris- 
tians enough were to realize that the 
time of Israel's harvest has come !" 

We are given another expression 
of the world longing for unity from 
another source. "Many of our people 
are getting tired of the expression 
'salvation by character,' " said an ac- 
53 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

live Unitarian to the writer this week. 
"They have lost their objection to the 
expression 'saved by grace,' and 
would be glad to see it become gen- 
eral." He went on to explain that it 
was simply a recognition of the fact 
that in God we live and move and 
have our being, and that every good 
and perfect gift cometh from him, 
even the gift of character, and that 
without him we can do nothing. "We 
are all the children of God created by 
him, made for a purpose, and saved 
by his creative plan, which is grace. 
Whether we accept the idea of atone- 
ment by substitution, or atonement by 
the *Lamb slain from the foundation 
of the world,' which is a symbol of 
the all-suffering God himself, we are 
all saved by his grace if we are saved 
at all. To deny this is atheism." 
The writer adds : "Can it be in these 
thrilling days, so mysterious in the 
54 



THE WORLD DEMAND 

evidence they show of the working 
of some mighty power, that God in 
breaking down the partition walls 
and burning up in a fierce confla- 
gration the barriers that divide 
and antagonize nations, races and 
churches, finds the principal obstacles 
to his efforts in the prejudices and 
hatreds in the hearts of his own 
chosen ones ?" 

Now, a world in which such deeds 
can be done, in which such thoughts 
can be sincerely and widely expressed, 
is a plastic world, a world that is 
lighted with the great hope of a new 
spirit of humanitarianism — yea, 
more than that, a world which is pre- 
pared as no world has ever before 
been prepared to accept the essential 
teachings of Jesus as the rule and 
guide of life, and to enter actually 
into that brotherhood which is im- 
plied by the acceptance of God as our 
55 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

common Father. No more can we 
allow the last and feeblest brother of 
man to suffer in bitter or in sullen 
neglect. 



56 



CHAPTER VI 

AMERICA AND THE SUPER- 
MAN 

The source of the modern streams 
of influence form a most interesting 
field for study. To these streams 
America is related by connections the 
most direct. There is no question, I 
presume, of the influence of the Re- 
naissance upon modern life, nor that 
the forces which led to the settling of 
America and its eventual political de- 
pendence were long preparing and 
developing. There would be no ques- 
tion of the common origin of many 
of the political and social ideals later 
realized both in American and in 
European life. 

The boldness of the Renaissance 
philosophy taught by Bacon, Hobbes, 
57 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

Descartes, and Spinoza was startling 
to a world that had been long accus- 
tomed to an anaemic philosophical 
dogmatism. But their thought was 
all a part of the general movement of 
the newly discovered world, and it 
laid the foundations for the period of 
the Enlightenment. It is quite impos- 
sible to consider that movement out of 
which sprang the French Revolution, 
the American war for Independence, 
and the foundations of modern Ger- 
many apart from the influences of 
the Enlightenment and the elements 
which that period in philosophy gath- 
ered from the Renaissance. Perhaps 
the greatest political influence of the 
time centered in the philosophy which 
was set forth by Rousseau. Rousseau 
became the father of modern roman- 
ticism and has exerted a profound 
and often unappreciated influence 
upon the present age. In France and 
58 



AMERICA AND SUPERMAN 

America he became the spokesman 
for a rising tide of individuahsm 
which threatened every political in- 
stitution. The movement was per- 
vaded with naturalism, skepticism, 
and the utilitarian ethics of Spinoza. 
It was deistic on the religious side. 
It was a pronounced individualism. 
It was a part of the general reaction 
against institutions which had re- 
pressed both spiritual and political in- 
itiative. It was the cry of the com- 
mon man for expression, but it lacked 
the spiritual element. In France and 
in America certain factors operated 
to give this individualism an ap- 
propriate exercise and outworking 
which greatly served to rationalize 
and modify it. In France this indi- 
vidualism was sobered and brought 
under discipline as the result of politi- 
cal readjustment and responsibility 
which resulted in an orderly republic. 
59 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

Similar influences modified the move- 
ment in America. No element works 
for conservatism like responsibility. 
In America there were not only the 
problems arising from the founding 
of the new state but also from a period 
given over to pioneering and settle- 
ment. Then came the agitation over 
slavery, culminating in the great war, 
which added a profound humanita- 
rian and moral element to the Ameri- 
can spirit. Through struggle Amer- 
ica at last found her soul. The depth 
of that influence is suggested by the 
constant appeal in the present crisis 
to the moral decisions of Lincoln. 

The movement of individualism 
was destined to take a different turn 
in Germany. Her thinkers were like- 
wise profoundly moved by romanti- 
cism. We are told by HenseP that 

* Quoted by Paul More, in Shelburne Essays, 
6th Series, p. 215. 

60 



AMERICA AND SUPERMAN 

"Kant and Herder, Goethe and Schil- 
ler are not to be conceived without 
Rousseau, and through them is 
formed the new science, the new phi- 
losophy, the new poetry of German 
Idealism." 

The very heart of Goethe's philoso- 
phy lay in the claim for the rights of 
individualism. This claim was aided 
and abetted by the Spinozean ethics, 
which characterized the romantic 
movement. The peculiar attitude to- 
ward one's own shortcomings and 
sins, the denial to repentance of any 
place in moral well-being, gave to that 
individualism an impulse wholly law- 
less and dangerous. The doctrine 
that the individual is right in seeking 
his own development at any moral 
cost and without regard to the rights 
of others, has had most baleful conse- 
quences. And such was the philoso- 
phy of Goethe. The popular worship 
6i 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

accorded Goethe in the German world 
prepared the way for the pohtical 
ethics of Bismarck and the essen- 
tial prophet was provided in Nietz- 
sche. 

It is interesting to note that the in- 
dividualism of Rousseau was social 
as well as selfish. He thought of the 
good of the mass as well as of the 
good of the individual. But the 
Goethean and Nietzschean individu- 
alism was aristocratic and not demo- 
cratic. The democratic or meliorative 
element in Rousseau was destined to 
find voice in Germany through Karl 
Marx. It is significant that these 
systems of common origin stand now 
face to face in conflict in Germany 
herself. 

Romanticism has not lacked disci- 
ples in America. The influence of 
Rousseau's ideas of education has 
been pronounced, and far more influ- 
62 



AMERICA AND SUPERMAN 

ential within a quarter century than 
at any time previously. This influ- 
ence has been of questionable tendency 
both in academic and social life. 
Rousseau's idea of education was "to 
make instinct instead of experienced 
judgment the basis of education, im- 
pulse instead of control, unbridled 
liberty instead of obedience, nature 
instead of discipline. To foster the 
emotions as if the uniting bond of 
mankind were sentiment rather than 
reason might seem so monstrous a 
perversion of the truth as to awaken 
abhorrence in any considerable 
reader." To which the writer adds: 
*'One wonders curiously, or sadly 
sometimes, that the preachers who 
abdicate the fear of God for hu- 
manitarianism, and the teachers who 
surrender the higher discipline for 
subservience to individual choice, 
do not see, or, seeing, do not dread, 
63 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

the goal toward which they are 
facing." ^ 

Fortunately, this movement has not 
struck deeply into American life. 
American individualism has been 
tempered by a strong conservatism. 
In Germany, on the contrary, where 
there has been little free and popular 
government the development, as is 
usual when confined to theory, has 
taken on a radical form. The surest 
cure for radicalism is to make it re- 
sponsible, so America has long pos- 
sessed the safety-valve of political ac- 
tion, and even the easy exploitation of 
educational fads has not been without 
a certain advantage. 

But America's individualism has 
been turned into humanitarian chan- 
nels by the force of her historic posi- 
tion and her spiritual achievement. 

' More, Shelburne Essays, 6th Series, pp. 230- 
231, 241. 

64 



AMERICA AND SUPERMAN 

Evils have gained the upper hand. 
Slavery, greed, capitalism, saloonism 
all have been in power during mo- 
ments of reaction, but every crisis 
has so far found the heart of her 
people morally and ethically sound. 
It has never been possible to turn her 
permanently away from the rights of 
the individual, as he exists in society 
and in political life. 

It is most fitting for America to 
take her place in this struggle for 
freedom. It was to have been ex- 
pected that when the great eventual 
conflict for human liberty should come 
she would find her place beside all 
other men of good will. America has 
been intensely personalistic in her 
ideals. The foundation stone of her 
democracy has been the unalloyed 
worth and dignity of the human spirit. 
It was the vast ideal of our great 
martyr, Abraham Lincoln. The one 
65 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

reason for America's being is that 
everywhere the physical, social, and 
spiritual rights of man may be 
achieved. 



66 



CHAPTER VII 

THE VOICE AT ARMAGEDDON 

Now the storm is on the world — a 
storm so fierce that the old landmarks 
are obliterated. 

"The ancient stars are tired and dim 
And no new star announces Him." 

Upon our day is cast the necessity of 
groping out of the darkness, with no 
surer star than that of Bethlehem. 
But it is no day for pessimism. The 
old order passes away with noise and 
great heat that a new and better order 
may come in. The meaning of it all 
is a better world, a new heaven and 
a new earth to be bought by great 
sacrifice. What are the voices that 
shall speak when Armageddon is 
done? 

67 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

Shall the final type of manhood be 
the blonde beast of whom Nietzsche 
tells, whose contempt for womanhood 
thus finds expression in Zarathustra? 
"Man shall be trained for war, and 
woman for the recreation of the war- 
rior: all else is folly."^ "Thou goest 
to Women? Do not forget thy 
whip!"2 

Or shall it be that finer spirit of 
manhood expressed in the lines of 
Laurence Binyon, who touches the 
springs that run deepest at Armaged- 
don, those which give victory over the 
beast when man meets man in con- 
flict. The lines are addressed 

To Women 

"Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts 
That have foreknown the utter price. 
Your hearts burn upward hke a flame 
Of splendor and of sacrifice. 



' XVIII, p. 75, Zarathustra. 
*Ibid., p. 77. 

68 



VOICE AT ARMAGEDDON 

"For you too to battle go 

Not with marching drums and cheers, 
But in the watch of solitude 
And through the boundless night of 
fears. 

"And not a shot comes blind with death, 
And not a stab of shell is pressed 
Home, but invisibly it tore 
And entered first a woman's breast." 

When Dante made pilgrimage 
through hell there was one strain as 
present there and as significant as it 
was in paradise. Up the steep sides 
of the pit of agony and flame, above 
the blackness of blasphemies and 
hate, reechoing also along the toil- 
some sides of purgatory, the song was 
ever heard: "Amore, amore, amore" 
— "Love, love, love." To the angels 
it was but the echo of the deeper song 
that burned, an eternal flame of joy 
within their hearts. To the pilgrims 
through purgatory it brought ref resh- 
69 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

ing dews of aspiration and hope, and 
to the unrepentant who lay in the pit 
the song that was aspiration and joy 
to the others was bitterest punish- 
ment. Whatever storms may shake 
the old world, the final song that shall 
survive all other songs shall be the 
song of eternal love. The blonde 
beast shall not utter the final nor 
the authoritative speech at Armaged- 
don. 

I listen to the voice of him who 
spoke over the death throes of an 
older world as he stood in the spirit 
on Patmos on the Lord's Day. I hear 
him saying across the centuries, 
"Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and 
whoremongers, and murderers, and 
idolaters, and whosoever loveth and 
maketh a lie." 

Lieutenant H. P. M. Jones, Ma- 
chine Gun Corps, British Army, is re- 
ported in the press to have written 
70 



VOICE AT ARMAGEDDON 

from France a few days before he 
"went west" these words : 

''BeHeve me, we are on the eve of a 
great revelation. All this mastery of 
the air, X-rays, wireless telegraphy, 
and other wonders of electricity, and 
other marvels of modern science — 
coupled with the ever-widening search 
after the occult, the mystic and the 
spiritual — all these things, I say, are 
but the premonitory rumblings, the 
signs and symptoms of the Great Dis- 
covery — a manifestation which shall 
lift the veil which at present hides 
from us the Secret of the Ages. Yes, 
the veil is lifting, and soon Whence 
and Whither will be revealed. 

"I believe that this mighty up- 
heaval of the nations is an integral 
part of the scheme of the Great Awak- 
ening. I believe we are witnessing 
the last demonstration on the part of 
Germany of the primitive savagery 
71 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

and barbarism from which we sprang, 
and that equally on the part of the 
Anglo-Saxon and the Latin Allies 
they are being tried in the furnace of 
Sacrifice and Exaltation, preparatory 
to entering realms of knowledge and 
enlightenment as yet unexplored. The 
Slavs are being tested for their fit- 
ness for a big step forward, and I be- 
lieve they will in the end come well 
through the ordeal. The Teuton will 
have to make a new start, and the 
Turk will be sent back to Asia, to 
await there his fate when the nascent 
nations of the Far East reach the new 
milestone in their destiny. . . , That 
is my reading of the inner purport of 
this long-ordained eruption. 

"But to each of us it may have at 
least this meaning — that each of us 
has become a soldier in the army of 
God." 

Before we reach a world of 
72 



VOICE AT ARMAGEDDON 

vaster powers we must decide the 
moral use of power. We must de- 
termine now whether we shall use it 
for the few or for all humanity. Un- 
til by climbing our cross we show a 
spiritual mastery sufficient for that 
better day we cannot enter into our 
kingdom. 

You who are going now to the fields 
of action in the world are going to 
responsibilities and duties greater 
than have ever been known to men; 
some of you, many perhaps, will taste 
the deep bitterness of sacrifice, but 
you will go, I trust, with the calm 
faith expressed by one who but re- 
cently passed beyond the shadows and 
the night, William Dewitt Hyde, of 
Bowdoin, who sang: 

"Creation's Lord, we give thee thanks 
That this thy world is incomplete, 
That battle calls our marshaled ranks, 
That work awaits our hands and feet. 

73 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE WAR 

"That thou hast not yet finished man, 
That we are in the making still — 
As friends who share the Maker's plan, 
As sons who know the Father's will. 

"Beyond the present sin and shame, 

Wrong's bitter, cruel, scorching blight, 
We see the beckoning vision flame, 
The blessed kingdom of the Right. 

"What though the Kingdom long delay. 
And still with haughty foes must cope ? 
It gives us that for which to pray, 
A field for toil and faith and hope. 

"Since what we choose is what we are, ' 
And what we love we yet shall be. 
The goal may ever shine afar — 
The will to win it makes us free." 



74 



